


Breathe

by TenbuHourin



Category: Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: AU, Cute Ending, M/M, Magical Kisses, One Shot, let's play how many canon references I can fit in one self indulgent piece, merfolk, there's magic but it's pretty much all made up, they're simple people in love your honour, with a few touches inspired by some folklore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-17 05:40:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28719765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TenbuHourin/pseuds/TenbuHourin
Summary: It was a misunderstanding, really. But because of it, Akira found himself banished to work at the ship of the terrible captain Kamoshida. But before he could start serving his time, he met a merman, and somehow got both of them thrown in the brig, with a death sentence on their heads. Escaping was pretty much impossible. But then again, before any of this started, Akira had thought there was no way cats could talk...Or, how Akira saved a merman, got a best friend, fell in love a little bit, and went on an adventure.Or how it’s @grapeflavoredorange ‘s birthday, and I wanted to write something nice for this amazing person who just has the best hcs and aus, and jokes, everything. I took the idea from one of our conversations, about how in the sims 4 a mermaid’s kiss gives you the ability to breathe underwater for a few hours.
Relationships: Kurusu Akira/Sakamoto Ryuji, Persona 5 Protagonist/Sakamoto Ryuji
Comments: 4
Kudos: 55





	Breathe

**Author's Note:**

> God help me I'm back at my bullshit again...... But it's for a good cause! It was @grapeflavoredorange's birthday this week and I had to do something about it. 
> 
> This fic's not my usual style, but considering such a joyful occasion, I wanted something heart warming and uncomplicated. I had to post it on tumblr so it wouldn't be late for the birthday, but I decided to post here as well just so my friend can save it more easily (she decided to save the link to the post, isn't that sweet??) I finished writing this at almost 4am so forgive me for any typos and do tell me them if you find any so I can fix it.
> 
> Thank you again, my friend, for always cheering me up with your hcs and aus, and for being an amazing part of this fandom. You made my day a lot! I hope this year is awesome for you!

It was an odd day, the atmosphere felt charged and unnatural. It was raining softly, but the grey clouds were dense, looming over his head. A young man with a mop of rebellious black hair sat at the bay, passively watching the horizon, and the sea.

The rain started to fall harder, and that was the only thing that made him move from his spot. Akira wasn’t really sure how he even ended up there. The last weeks of his life felt like a bad dream, all disconnect feelings and sudden events that made no sense at all. How did he end up convicted and then condemned to serve his time on a poacher’s ship? A year on the sea, for a boy who should have just continued his family business and run a farm.

He sighed under the small shelter he found from the rain.

Suddenly, there was movement in the water, something bright and golden flashing quickly and then vanishing. Gone almost as soon as it appeared, a flash of colour in the white haze of the copious rain. It was pouring at this point, and it was impossible to tell what was that, from where he stood.

Akira had always been too curious for his own good.

He approached, silent as a cat, and leaned over the wooden plates of the pier. For his absolute shock, he found someone staring back at him.

It was beautiful. It looked like a he. His hair was golden and unnatural. But his eyes were a gentle brown, almost human, if his teeth weren’t so sharp. If his hair wasn’t so odd. There weren’t any humanoid creatures around these parts of the ocean, except for merfolk. This one was surely pretty enough to be one of them. And then, the fact that he was still swimming in that weather was surely proof that he wasn’t afraid of drowning. It was just… a weird place to see one of them. They usually hid from humans, since they started being hunted.

“What were you doing so close to the ship- wait, sorry. You probably have no idea what I’m saying.” Akira shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. It was a well known fact that merfolk didn’t speak human language.

The creature frowned, seemingly deeply offended.

“I’m not dumb. I can speak your dumb language.” “I didn’t- I mean…” Akira blinked, startled. The creature sounded a bit strange, but he was fluent enough.

“You can stop the bullshit, ok? Kamoshida knows I can speak, and anyone from his crew knows it too.”

“I don’t even know this Kamoshida person. I’m not a poacher. I just got assigned here today.” The aggression immediately left those brown eyes.

“Oh. I guess it makes sense then.” The blond looked around, swimming in place. “I was just passing by and saw his ship and I thought of throwing some rocks at this stupid thing so it might stall him a bit.”

Akira leaned closer, trying to hear the blond through the thunderous noise of the rain splattering hard around them. Later, Akira would want to smack himself in the head for being so stupid. It should be so obvious what was going to happen. But they were both distracted, and the rain was too loud to allow them to hear fickle things like footsteps. Akira just noticed when something blocked the partial daylight, a shadow just behind him.

“Who do we have here?” It was a man’s voice, but Akira didn’t recognize it. The blond, however, seemed to do. His brown eyes got wide, and he immediately yelled:

“It’s Kamoshida, run!”

Akira did turn to run away, but he was a bit too late for that, and the blunt handle of a saber came down hard on his head. He was too dizzy to see how the merman stopped a second too long when it heard him crying out. He did hear a pained scream not long after, and then something heavy being brought on board of the ship, still trashing.

“This damned monster, now I finally got him.” Akira heard, and he felt his chest tight with worry. Of course. The captain hunted merfolk. He noticed the hat, and the nicer clothes. Kamoshida was the name of the captain of the ship he had been assigned to. Kamoshida’s eyes turned to him. “And of course this scum here would turn out to be a mutineer. I knew he was bad news, when my friend asked me for him to join this crew.” And Akira was fairly certain Kamoshida wasn’t ever going to give him a chance.

“I was invited to an important event at the next port so I’ll wait to hand you over to the authorities in the next town.” Kamoshida went on, and Akira’s head was pounding already, and he wished he wasn’t so dizzy otherwise he’d have decked the captain’s stupid face just to get him to shut up. The captain turned to look at the blond merman writhing on the deck. “And you… I might already have a buyer in potential. If you live that long that is.”

It was clearly a petty vengeance coming from a pitiful man who cared more about humiliating others than he could care about money. He cared about having power over others, and he’d enjoy watching them squirm in place.

Akira was thrown in the brig, and heard the lock clicking heavily. He cursed under his breath, looking around. There was a metal container there, filled with water and fixed to the floor with screws. It was occupied, unfortunately.

The merman he saw earlier looked in agony, his breathing shallow and fast. The harpoon had caught him by a few inches, and had been torn free of him as he struggled. What remained was an open wound on the side of his tail, ragged edges bleeding a startling red blood. His scales were a gentle shade of gold. It seemed to gleam faintly in an ethereal way even under the dim light. It was this bit heartbreaking to see something this beautiful with a wound like that.

He stepped closer, and the merman hissed in warning, eyes clouded with pain.

“I just wanna help.” He held his hands up, in what he hoped was a reassuring gesture.

The creature bared its teeth, snarling. He had very sharp teeth, indeed. Clearly made to tear flesh.

“It’s okay,” he said, trying to calm himself down, because if the merman was going to survive, Akira would have to do something to help. Kamoshida would clearly enjoy watching the specimen die slowly.

Akira reached a hand out. The merman snapped his mouth, threatening a vicious bite.

The venom was known to paralyze its victim in a few seconds. Painful. Probably deadly, but as far as Akira knew merfolk liked to eat its food while it was still alive, so no one really knew if the venom was fatal. Those who bought merfolk as exotic pets usually had them muzzled most of the time. Sedated when not. Some pulled off all of their teeth and used it as decoration. A few tried to get rid of their vocal chords, because they hated the shrills merfolk made.

“C’mon, we need to get that treated. You don’t wanna give Kamoshida the satisfaction of actually killing you.” That earned him a startled blink from the merman, followed by a resentful glare pointed at the door, where he last saw the captain.

“You’re right.” He seemed to deflate, and allowed Akira to come closer. “So… if you don’t wanna hunt merfolk, why are you here?” The blond asked in a voice that trembled in pain, but he was bravely pretending otherwise.

Akira found himself telling it all. Maybe because it was the first friendly contact he had since he got arrested. Maybe because the blond made him feel oddly at ease. But as Akira tried his best to stop the bleeding using his own shirt, he started talking about before. His tale had the merit of distracting the merman from the pain. When the blood stopped overflowing, and as he finished tying off the cloth around the wound, the blond was entirely caught up with the story.

“That’s horrible! It wasn’t fair. I can’t believe they did that to you. And now you got caught up with Kamoshida’s shit.” Akira blinked, feeling a curious pressure on his throat. It was the first time anyone told him that. It was the first time anyone really looked at him after he was labeled a criminal. But it made some sense, that another one that was seen as inherently evil and wicked would understand him. They both knew what humans could do to those they deemed too different.

“So… I’m guessing you’ve met Kamoshida personally before this.” Akira was curious about the merman’s reaction at seeing the man, and the disgust in his face at just uttering his name. 

“Yeah. He kinda got me once already. He almost caught me and a group of my friends. But I stayed behind and gave them the alarm, and Kamoshida caught me and broke my tail. Sent me back just so all the others would see what happened to those who tried to save one another. He’s trying to divide us, so he can have an easier time catching us.” And he had already broken that one specimen, it wouldn’t be worth that much in the market. But it’d kept the others afraid enough.

“That’s... that’s horrible,” Akira breathed out. The merman fell silent, and it was just then that Akira noticed how quiet everything was. The late afternoon had probably turned into night without him realizing it. The ship was rocking slightly, a bit differently from when they were at the shore. With a pang of anxiety, Akira realized they had set sail. There was no way out, and the ship was silent as a tomb as the night grew late. Akira was glad for having company.

Until the next port at least. And then the merman would be sold off, and Akira would be handed over to the authorities and arrested.

They had little to occupy their days, but they had each other, at least. They played games, and talked, about nothing and everything.

"What do you miss the most, from back home?” Akira asked, one day.

“My mom. You?”

“I don’t think I have anything to go back to.”

Over the days, Akira learned that his new friend’s name was a couple of whistles he had no idea on how to pronounce. He was feeling a bit self conscious about his inability to say it, but the blond looked very frustrated as well as he tried saying his own name.

“Air is so weird,” the merman complained, trying saying his name again and just ended up producing some hisses.

Since he couldn’t tell his proper name out of the water, the blond insisted on Akira suggesting some human names that would fit him. He got into his head that it’d be cool to have another name. He was also extremely picky, and wanted something that sounded cool enough, and that had a relevant meaning. After many names were discarded, one day, he settled on one.

“Ryuji. I like the sound of that. And I like that it was a warrior’s name. Ok, I’m Ryuji!”

Ryuji had a lot of scars. A long one on his back, as if he had been thrown against a sharp rock. A slightly crooked finger. A cut next to his eyebrow. Akira had expected for merfolk to have smooth and unblemished skin, but Ryuji wasn’t like that. Akira wondered why he couldn’t find the blond any less pretty because of that. It was probably the smile. Ryuji had a beautiful smile, and a cute laugh. Akira had never heard him singing, and he wondered if it was true their voice could put spells on people. His breathless laughter seemed to have a similar effect.

On that day, Ryuji started on the measly breakfast Kamoshida deemed to offer the prisoners, namely, a portion of fish.

“So… does your kind eat humans?” Akira asked, while he was gently washing the wound with what he could spare of the small supply of fresh water they were offered. Fortunately, merfolk seemed to have a much better time recovering from wounds, because it didn’t look infected. Could it be the seawater? Akira had so many questions. It was partially because he had never met a merman before, but it was also a lot just because he wanted to get to know Ryuji better. The blond hummed as he acknowledged his question. Akira wondered if he should’ve started from another topic. He didn’t mean to sound judgemental. He really should try to improve his social skills...

“Some of us do,” Ryuji answered easily, seemingly unbothered by Akira’s bluntness. “Well, we’re all carnivores, and we are kinda similar to fishes, and humans, but we’re not those things. We wouldn’t eat another merfolk, but humans and fishes ain’t merfolk,” he reasoned. “Oh, but I’ve never eaten a human.”

He was born and raised on that specific part of the ocean, where hunting merfolk was pretty common, so it wasn’t really worth it to any of them to go after humans while in their original form. But they still learned human language so they could trick sailors into thinking they didn’t capture a mermaid, it was just that drunk lad over there who thought he saw a fishtail but he was wrong can’t you see my human legs and how I speak? Please let me go. “That’s kinda those poachers’ fault, tho.”

Akira looked thoughtful, but not afraid, and he didn’t stop treating his wound. Ryuji felt a swell of affection for that boy, so human and fragile, but so daring. So reckless. He’d probably try to befriend anything partially capable of understanding his words. And get his kind hand bitten by the creature. Mangled beyond recognition.

Ryuji felt an uncomfortable twinge in his chest.

“I’d never eat you, tho.”

Akira tilted his head, apparently surprised. “Why not?”

“Well, it’s like if you had a friendly... what do you guys eat for meat?”

“Fish as well. Duck. Pig. Rabbits.”

“Well imagine you had a fish as a pet. Or this pig you said. You think of it as your friend right? You wouldn’t eat it. You wouldn’t wanna.”

Akira huffed a laugh.

“What?! I’m being serious here, y’know?”

“Thanks.”

“What the hell…” he said, but he was laughing too, and Akira felt his heart beating a little too fast inside his chest.

At night, the chilly wind from outside passed through the gaps of the wood, dropping the temperature to an uncomfortable amount. Ryuji ran colder anyway, used to the water temperature of that region, so it took him a few nights to notice Akira wasn’t fairing very well. He woke up in the middle of the night to a small sound.

Akira’s naked torso shuddered as he drew in a breath. His shirt was being used as a makeshift bandage for the merman’s injured tail, and his ragged pants were made of a cheap and too thin fabric. Ryuji gets out of the water then, lying down next to Akira.

“Will you be okay out of the water?”

Ryuji startled a little at hearing Akira’s voice, not having expected him to still be awake at that hour. But he supposed it was hard to fall asleep when he was that cold.

“If it dries up, after half an hour or so, my tail just changes into legs and I look like a human. I only need a few minutes in the water for it to come back, though.” The blond shrugged, coming closer and blocking a bit of the wind. “I’ve heard not all merfolk can do that, but our species around here can. My grandma says back in the day we used that to charm humans and trick them into falling in love with us. But I don’t know if it’s true.”

Akira considered the concept for a while, then made the very important math that soon enough Ryuji would be naked. Human naked. Of course Ryuji was kind of naked before, but that was different. Akira considered his options. Under his pants he was still using loose shorts as underwear. He could perfectly do without his pants, since his shorts came down to almost his knees. It wasn’t that proper, but who was he trying to impress anyway? It was more important not to have his attractive friend walking around naked.

“What you doing?” Ryuji curiously asked as he saw Akira getting up and taking off his pants.

“You can wear this when you get your legs. I-it can get a bit cold when you have legs,” he said, even if it was an excuse.

Ryuji shrugged, but seemed to believe his words, and kept the clothing in his hands. They stayed close together, Ryuji trying to trap in a bit of Akira’s body heat. He’d probably be more comfortable in the water, which made Akira feel a bit guilty. If the blond could make it to water, he could get away. Merfolk could swim miles, and too fast for any ship to pursue if they started running away, which was why they were mostly caught by using traps and other underhanded methods.

“What if I thought of a way to return you to the sea?” Akira asked quietly. “I could make a distraction and buy you a few minutes to swim away.”

Ryuji hesitated for a moment. It wasn’t something he liked to talk about, but then again, he trusted Akira.

“... I don’t think I’d get very far.”

“Why not?” Akira asked softly.

_You know you can tell me anything._

Ryuji knew it. It felt a bit shameful anyway.

What’s a merman worth if he cannot even swim properly?

“I’m not… I mean, I can still swim, but I’m really slow. After… Kamoshida broke my tail, I couldn’t swim as before. I’m slow and I tire easily,” he admitted, looking away, missing the crushed look on Akira’s eyes as he realized the extent of the damage Kamoshida had inflicted on his friend. “Sometimes I think I should give up on the sea.”

“But you love it, right?”

Ryuji wasn’t used to anyone being able to look at him and… see him. It was incredibly nice, even if it made his heart hurt a little.

“Yeah, I do,” his voice was hoarse.

They were silent for a few more minutes.

The tiniest window on the opposite side of their cell allowed for a stream of moonlight. Akira contemplated it for a bit, until he heard Ryuji hissing, and he turned to look.

His hair was still messy and spiky, but it was tinted a common black, and his teeth were rounded and human. His canines still looked a little too sharp, but it was mostly imperceptible.

Akira very firmly didn’t look down.

Ryuji noticed him staring at his face, and he half smiled, making a valiant effort into putting on that piece of clothing Akira offered. It felt weird on his skin. He put one leg in one hole, and the other in the other hole, and pulled the cloth up. Then, he tied again the bandage around his newly formed leg. The wound looked more gruesome on his human skin, located somewhere close to his shin.

“So… how do I look?” he playfully asked as he finished putting on the ragged clothing, and dressing the wound on his leg.

“You look like a thug.”

“Hey!”

Akira huffed a laugh, and Ryuji laughed back. He took a moment to look at Akira’s eyes, the gentle curve of his nose, the pale pink of his lips. Ryuji’s heart did a funny thing in his chest when he did that last thing. Akira wetted his lips after a moment, and Ryuji looked away as quick as he could, his heart jackrabbiting against his ribs.

When he thought he had escaped that weird feeling in his chest, Akira’s deep and smooth voice sounded again, and Ryuji’s heart continued racing. It started doing that lately, when Akira did or said some things.

“I barely know how to swim,” Akira offered with a shrug. “I mean, I don’t think I’d drown if I fell in the water, but I wouldn’t last much there.” He could dog paddle and that was about it. Did it work? Yes, but that surely as hell wasn’t meant to be done for more than a couple of minutes. Swimming wasn’t something he was expecting to need in his life, since his parents owned a farm, but then again since when his life went according to the plan?

Ryuji perked up at the information, though.

“I could teach you! You may need it someday! It’s… everything is so heavy outside of the water. You can’t go up, you have always to walk on the stupid ground and it’s…” He just couldn’t find words to tell. “Swimming is just the best thing. And the fastest you go, the better it feels. It can be useful even when you go back home.”

“I’d like that.” Akira’s gaze was far away, and he sounded oddly melancholic.

“Yeah… anyway, after we get out of here, we could travel the world together.”

“You… Will you want to stay with me? Even after you’re free to go?”

“‘Course. We’re friends, and I think it’d be awesome to go on an adventure, and help people on our way.” And he would have a chance to finally feel worthy, and to make his mom proud of him. And there was no one else he’d rather go with on an adventure than Akira. The realization hit him all at once. “You’re my friend. And… Y’know how I told ya swimming made me feel? Being with you is kinda the same. I feel free.”

Ryuji aimed a bright smile at him, and Akira felt his heart skipping a beat, tripping over while doing something it should know how to do.

“I know a mermaid,” Ryuji continued, excited about the idea of their new adventure. “She’s travelled to other seas, she might know her way around. After we break out of here, maybe at the next stop for supplies, we could ask her for directions and then when Kamoshida notices we escaped, we’ll be far from his stupid ship.”

Akira nodded, thoughtfully. “Sounds good.”

“Awesome! Then we have a plan.” It was the thinnest skeleton of a plan, but it was enough for them. They could always wing it from there.

The day their lives really started to change started off as any other. Ryuji was restlessly sitting on his small container of water as he told stories about his life in the sea. Akira had started teaching him how to properly walk on two legs, in exchange of being taught on how to swim at the next chance they got. They had just stopped their training when they heard a commotion outside.

And then a small tuxedo cat gets thrown in the brig with them, screeching bloody murder.

One of the poachers used one side of a manacle to put around its neck, and chained it to the wall just outside their cell. The crewmate looked warily at the animal, and threw the keys inside, hoping that the monster the captain caught would dissuade the cat from trying to get to the keys. Akira found it particularly odd, that anyone would put that much effort into capturing a cat. And found it even more odd that the crewmate somehow thought the cat could escape if he got the key. The cat screamed well after the crewmate left, and it needed a minute before noticing there were more people in the room.

“Woah! A huge tuna! Looks yummy…” the cat actually talked.

“Gah! Aki, what is that thing?!” Ryuji grabbed Akira’s arm, hiding slightly behind him and glaring at the newcomer. Just in case- he had never seen that thing before, but apparently it thought he was food because he had a fish tail- the blond leapt off the container, hoping to get his legs back soon.

“Huh… a cat. But I’ve never seen a talking cat before.”

“And I’ve never seen a talking tuna before.”

“Cat, stop saying my friend looks like a tuna.” Akira didn’t know a lot about fishes, but he had eaten tuna before and, in his opinion, Ryuji’s tail didn’t look like a tuna's tail. 

“I’m not a cat and I have a proper name.” The cat tried to stand a little taller, but the metal of the manacles was suffocating him a bit. “I’m Morgana.”

They blinked at him. Akira knew he should have started to expect the unexpected since he befriended a merman, but seeing a talking cat was still weird.

“So… will you two let me out? Please, I can help you two as well!”

Ryuji hesitated. “I dunno… Should we trust him, Aki?”

The cat looked quite miserable, and Akira pondered his options. He hated to see how they trapped such a small animal, and if the cat was imprisoned like them, he probably was an enemy of Kamoshida. Something in his guts told him it was an important decision, and that he kind of knew what he would be choosing from the start.

He really hoped he didn’t regret that choice.

He freed the cat, who took his time to stretch its lean spine and flex his legs. But, true to his word, Morgana leapt up and started trying to pick the keys to their cell from the hook where they hung. He had to insist for a few minutes, but he eventually got them and picked it up with his mouth, treading to their cell. “There! It wasn’t a bad deal, was it?” He preened, while Akira made a quick job of opening the cell.

“But now what, cat?” Ryuji sullenly asked.

“There’s a storm coming pretty soon, you dumbasses. I’ve been roaming this ship since we left the port, I know the crewmate’s schedules, so we can sneak around them. And then you two can swim to the shore, we’re not that far away, but they won’t notice you’re gone, and they wouldn’t go after you in this weather.”

“What about you?”

“I still have some business here, but I can get out when we reach land. I can hide, I just got caught this time because the stupid captain got up at night out of nowhere…”

“Whaddya think, Aki?”

“Well, I think it’s the better shot we’ll have. I think we can manage to swim, if we’re that close to land. You can swim as slow as you need, and I won’t have to swim a big distance, I think it’s doable. After that, we can hide for a bit, and then go after your friend and ask for directions, and then we’ll see what happens.”

Ryuji nodded, and they all waited until he got his legs again and dressed up, and then they were on the run. They parted ways with the cat somewhere along a corridor, with instructions about how to get on the deck.

The storm was fierce, having picked up in a matter of minutes, and Akira barely managed to keep upright as the ship lurched to the side. They emerged from below deck to the howling wind and thundering skies. Ryuji faltered, his leg still hurting from the wound, and from using muscles he wasn’t used to. When the blond crashed into a few crates, they swayed to the side and slid downstairs just to crash into a door. The captain’s door, by the look of it, but they were sprinting on the slippery wood of the deck and running for their lives.

But of course, they weren’t alone above deck.

“They’re running away!”

The storm was sending huge waves that were washing over the wooden floor, tilting the ship in absurd angles, making it absolutely impossible to run. Akira froze in place, and whirled around to look at any possible weapons. Maybe if he took down that group of sailors, before anyone else noticed, on the off chance no one heard the alarm over the roaring of the storm- It was then that Kamoshida showed up.

“Shoot them!”

Ryuji collided against his side, and the world tilted off its axis as they plunged into the water.

Akira tried to keep his head above the crashing waves, but he only managed to swallow an entire mouthful of seawater. As another wave passed above his head, his body was thrown to the side. As he tried to swim up, he realized he couldn’t tell up from down even with his eyes wide open. The water was too deep and his lungs burned for air. Everything was salty water that burned his eyes and constricted his lungs from the outside.

The stormy sea at night was every bit as terrifying as he had heard about, and he was lost.

Ryuji’s voice was forming a series of shrills and clickings but everything was drowned out by the roaring in his ears. Akira shook his head desperatedly, not understanding a single sound out of Ryuji’s mouth, his lungs spasming as he couldn’t hold his breath anymore.

His panic was suddenly cut off by soft lips on his mouth, strong hands framing his face gently. His heart swelled, and it was the sweetest thing he had ever tasted.

It was entirely like a breath of air.

Akira instinctively closed his eyes and let himself savour it, feeling a sudden rush of life running down his whole body. There was a gentle thumb caressing his cheek, and suddenly Akira forgot entirely about menial things like air. His hands cradled the hands on his face, and he kissed back because he had sort of been wanting to do that for weeks. It felt absolutely amazing.

They pulled apart, and Akira remembered again he was still underwater.

Ryuji’s lips mouthed human words for him, gesticulating his meaning.

_Breathe._

Akira realised then and there that he really trusted Ryuji with his life.

He tried to breathe. It was the weirdest sensation ever. He shouldn’t be able to do that. But somehow as the water rushed into his mouth, his lungs stopped hurting as if he had taken a breath of fresh air. Ryuji pulled him along, swimming slower than ever with his still human legs, away from the ship. After a minute or two, he got his tail back, and then he started to swim more easily. He brought them away from the eye of the storm, and away from Kamoshida, deciding to take the longer way to the shore, just in case.

They slowly made their way back to the surface, and when they emerged, Akira immediately turned to look at the merman. He felt a lot conscious of the fact that Ryuji’s strong arms were keeping him afloat. They were also really close, and Akira felt his cheeks flushing.

“W-what? How did I…?” It was raining softly over their heads, but he barely noticed.

_How am I alive?_

“A-a mermaid kiss can make you able to breathe underwater for some hours.”

“O-oh.” So Ryuji was just trying to help. Akira felt oddly disappointed. “Thanks.”

“A-anytime?” As soon as the words left his lips- that felt like they were still tingling with the kiss- Ryuji realised how much he meant it.

“Really?” And Ryuji wondered if he imagined the small spark of hope in Akira’s voice. On the off chance he had been right, he decided to push it a little bit.

“Yeah. I liked it.” Akira’s lips curled into a small smile, but he looked a little embarrassed, a blush still high on his cheeks.

“... You know, I think I’m still feeling a little out of breath.”

“For real?!” Ryuji blinked, confused. It should have worked! Maybe he didn’t kiss him right?

Akira huffed a laugh.

“No.”

“Then what- oh. Oh.” Realization dawned on him all at once, and Ryuji felt his heart soaring.

“Ok?” Akira asked.

Ryuji excitedly jumped him, and his kiss tasted like the sea. Akira couldn’t stop himself from smiling throughout that kiss and the next one, and the next one.

If they kept that up, he’d have enough in him to spend his whole life living in the sea and never come up for air ever again.

**Author's Note:**

> And then in their adventures, they will find all of the other thieves (like Makoto, the witch, Haru, the fairy, and so many others), and then they'll be great friends and trouble will find them, but they'll win against all odds. 
> 
> I didn't want to write about Kamoshida being a pirate because then there'd be a lot of implications, and I wouldn't rest until I had made way too much research. Just think of him as someone who takes wild animals out of their habitats and capture them against the law to sell it to rich people who want an exotic pet to show off. It's animmal trafficking, mostly. 
> 
> Anyway, can you imagine the opposite, tho? Merman Akira and sailor Ryuji, dreaming of being a captain. As in captain Kidd, you know??
> 
> I almost wrote Ryuji as having entirely black hair, but then again, I kinda pictured it as somewhere very similar to Japan, but in the past, and I wanted something that stood out on Ryuji and made Akira think of his appearance as something definitely out of the norm. Ryuji having black hair when he's disguising as human is just that, on reverse logic, he's trying to blend in, and in that area, most people had black hair. But again, this is very freeform, don't concern yourselves over the details too much laksjdlaj
> 
> And yes, Ryuji's mermaid friend is definitely Ann. 
> 
> Anyway, that's mostly it. Thank you a lot to anyone who reads this, thank you a whole bunch for the people who saw this post on tumblr and read it (I got 12 notes, can you imagine? Really, thank you for those who reblogged it). Any thoughts, please write a comment! As you all know, I always dutifully answer all of them in excruciating detail lskjlaksjd


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